In a statement, the association said: ‘The automotive industry is actively contributing to the ongoing development of the WLTP, which is designed to better represent real-world driving. 

‘ACEA hopes that other major world regions participating in UN-ECE on WLTP, such as China, India, South Korea, Japan and the USA, will adopt the WLTP when ready. This will also help industry reduce testing and approval complexity and costs. Industry certainly welcomes the WLTP as it will provide more robust figures for comparing one vehicle against another in terms of their CO2 emissions and fuel economy. 

‘However, ACEA underlines that the new WLTP needs to be completed properly without rushing to meet unrealistic deadlines – so that it is robust and can apply to all vehicle technologies in a manufacturers’ portfolio. 

‘Managing the change to the WLTP must also be addressed. This includes the labelling of vehicles (i.e. how to deal with old test cycle and WLTP CO2 and fuel consumption test figures without confusing customers), how to apply the WLTP for the purpose of the legal monitoring against a future CO2 fleet average figure, and how governments will ensure that any CO2-based taxation scheme fairly addresses vehicles between the periods when the old test cycle is phased-out and WLTP is brought in. 

‘The automobile industry continues to participate in an active and positive manner to the development, finalisation and implementation of the WLTP.’